The invention concerns an external mirror arrangement for vehicles of the type as is known, for example from West German Pat. (DE-PS) No. 22 32 897. This mirror arrangement includes a mirror casing for housing an adjustable mirror and a mirror base connecting the mirror casing to the vehicle body via a connection linkage that permits pivotal movement of the mirror casing with respect to the base about hinge pivot joints so as to accommodate collision forces on the casing.
In the known mirror, the two hinge pins are parallel to one another; the mirror casing can deflect to the front or to the rear in the case of a collision in the manner of a swinging door. The front hinge pin (in the direction of travel) is immovably associated with the mirror base whereas the rear hinge pin is immovably associated with the mirror casing and can lift off from the mirror base. The mirror base itself is made very small and disappears from view in the operating position of the mirror casing; at least, it is not provided with a streamlined fairing. A disadvantage of this arrangement is that the linkage of the mirror retention is exposed, without protection, to the access of dirt. Experience, however, shows that the external mirrors of passenger cars are located in a region where much dirt arrives in the case of rain because the water wiped off the windshield by the windshield wipers escapes sideways into the vicinity of the mirror base of the external mirror. Protection for the mirror base is therefore important for both aesthetic and functional reasons.
German Published Examined Application (DE-AS) No. 29 16 686 shows a further developed form of an external mirror which can deflect to the front and to the rear about two different hinge pins. In this mirror, the two hinge pins are not parallel but are located at an acute angle to one another so that they intersect at a common point, still within the mirror base. In this mirror, the front pin is associated with the mirror casing so as to be relatively immovable and the rear pin is associated with the mirror base so as to be stationary, the arrangement being, however, more or less a matter of chance. The mirror base and the pin-jointed retention of the mirror casing are provided with a streamlined fairing which, however, because of the pivoting nature of the mirror casing, is manufactured from a rubber-elastic material. In order to achieve a particularly smooth contact between the mirror casing and the vehicle, the elastic fairing is even pulled into the region of the mirror casing; it there has contact, by means of a fine lip, with a correspondingly formed abutment of the rigid fairing of the mirror casing.
A disadvantage of this last mentioned external mirror is that the rubber-elastic fairing cannot be manufactured to the desired accuracy at an acceptable manufacturing cost; the result is that the rubber-elastic fairing does not always make neat contact with the fairing of the rigid mirror casing at the transition point. Another disadvantage of the rubber-elastic fairing is that it cannot be painted to the quality required in the automobile industry. An enduring and hard paint on the elastic substrate would crack severely in the case of a large deformation of the latter and would tend to peel off; a sufficiently elastic paint is not resistant to abrasion and polishing so that it would rapidly acquire a dull and ugly appearance.
An object of the invention is to arrange the moving mirror support in such a way that both the mirror base and the mirror casing can be provided with a rigid streamline fairing but in such a way that deflection of the mirror casing to the front or rear is possible without difficulty in the event of collision.
This object is achieved according to the invention by providing guide structure that assures lifting off of the casing from the base during initial forward movement of the casing. Because of the arrangement of the invention with the instantaneous center of the pivoting motion located outside the streamlined fairings in the vicinity of the gap, the two rigid fairing parts are lifted apart in the critical and initial phase of the forward pivoting motion in such a way that they can move past one another without contact. No corresponding lifting is necessary in the case of the deflecting pivoting motion to the rear so that the flap mechanism can be designed in a conventional manner for this pivoting direction. In especially preferred embodiments a guide link is attached at one end to the casing and carriers a guide roller at the other end which engages a guide track of the base. The location of the effective pivot center can thereby be simply and accurately controlled.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.